N-E Rail Facilties In For Change With Gauge Conversion

With the completion of Lumding-Dibrugarh and Lumding-Guwahati gauge conversion, and construction of a rail-road bridge over Brahmaputra nearing completion, rail facilities in the Northeast is in for a major change.

The railways are going through the last phase of the Rs 641 crore rail-road bridge at Jogighopa over Brahmaputra, for which Rs 66.89 crore has been allocated in 1998-99. RITES has been asked to carry out a final location survey for the Rs 1,000 crore rail-road bridge at Bogibeel in Dibrugarh, the results of which are expected in October 1999.

However, the railway ministry has decided to put on hold two new lines, two gauge conversion projects and the rail-cum-road bridge at Bogibeel in Dibrugarh. Those being put on hold are the broadgauge line connecting Dudhnoli and Depa and the Diphu-Karong line.

In all, projects worth Rs 1,844 crore in the Northeast have been put on hold. This is in tune with the new policy of the railways to reappraise all projects in the country and identify those that are viable from the commercial standpoint. The ministry feels that only 10 per cent of the new line projects which had been sanctioned and for which funds had been allocated in the budgets since 1993-94, are commercially viable.

The railways have also decided to go slow on the construction of two other new line projects in the Northeast after making small fund allocations. They are the Rs 156 crore Harmuti-Itanagar for which Rs 10 crore has been allocated and the Rs 575 crore project for connecting Kumarghat with Agartala, for which Rs 20 crore has been allocated in 1998-99.

Two gauge conversion projects in the Northeast has also been put on hold. These are the Rs 468 crore New Jalpaiguri-Siliguri-New Bongaigaon project and the Rs 200 crore Kathakal-Bhairabi project and the first phase of extension of branch line to Sairang.

It is going slow on the Rs 198 crore gauge conversion along Lumding-Silchar including new alignment between Migrendissa and Ditok-Cherra for which Rs 40 crore has been allocated in 1998-99 besides a token Rs 2 crore last year.